Calgary runner makes history in world’s toughest race

Sunday, July 27, 2014

By Jim Holt, For the Calgary Herald

Calgary marathon runner Lorie Alexander during the gruelling 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon. Alexander became the only woman to complete the first Badwater Ultra Cup challenge, running three gruelling ultramarathons in 2014.

Photographed by:Jim Holt, For the Calgary Herald

Lone Pine, Calif. — When Calgary marathon runner Lorie Alexander showed up at the starting line of the world’s toughest foot race last Monday she had something to prove.

She had run the Badwater 135 Ultramarathon three times before.

And, for anybody who has ever run 135 miles, or 217 kilometres, across Death Valley at the hottest time of the year, crossing three mountain ranges in triple-digit Fahrenheit temperatures — finishing is everything.

You get a belt buckle if you finish under 48 hours.

In 2010, when she first tackled Badwater, Alexander finished with a time of 44 hours, nine minutes and 23 seconds — belt buckle with less than four hours to spare. A year later, she came in with a time of 37:43:21.

When she returned in 2013 to beat the desert again, the desert beat her instead, forcing her out of the race.

“Last year, I had whiplash the week before the race and I wasn’t supposed to run it, but I did,” she said defiantly.

This year, she was out to prove she is one of the world’s toughest race survivors.

So, on July 21, at 6 a.m., when she placed her toes on the starting line at the base of Mount Whitney, highest mountain in the contiguous United States, Lorie Alexander, 55, was the only woman competing for a bigger prize — the Badwater Ultra Cup challenge.

By finishing the Badwater 135, she would become the only woman to have completed the cup challenge, meaning she would have logged three ultra-marathons in 2014 including the 82-kilometre Badwater Cape Fear race in March and the 130-kilometre Badwater Salton Sea race in May.

“This year, I’m going for the triple,” she said, referring to the cup challenge.

MONDAY

When the starting gun sounded, Alexander took her first steps up the mountain to the very top of Mount Whitney and to an elevation of 2,966 metres.

She ran that mountain climb — up 1,860 metres and across 35 kilometres — in five hours and eight minutes.

She was well on her way to meeting her super-survival running goal.

Coming down from the mountaintop, Alexander made her way through a rocky terrain many Canadians might recognize from movies filmed there such as Gunga Din (1939) and Iron Man (2008).

She returned to Lone Pine and the starting line shortly after 3:15 p.m.

By 3:19 p.m., facing a flat open road through Owen’s Valley, she had logged 72 kilometres in nine hours and 19 minutes. She was still on track.

At 7:20 p.m., however, as the sun was setting and as she crossed the 97-kilometre mark to begin her second mountain climb into the Inyo Mountains, to a ghost town called Cerro Gordo, her troubles began.

Blisters erupted on her heels and an imbalance of electrolytes in her system plagued her with severe stomach pains.

Alexander faced a climb of 13 kilometres to the top and 13 kilometres back, in the cold desert night, in pitch-black darkness.

Because the winding gravel road to the Cerro Gordo was so narrow and dangerous, poised over a 2,440-metre drop, none of crews assigned to helping runners were allowed to drive alongside them.

Like the other 100 toughest runners competing at Badwater from 24 countries, she climbed the mountain alone in the dark.

It was the toughest challenge she faced in the race, she said.

When she finally made it to the top of the mountain and stood before the dry dilapidated and abandoned ghost town buildings, she had run 108 kilometres in 16 hours and 44 minutes.

She was halfway in the race when she started her descent down the same mountain in the dark — still in pain, still alone, still determined.

When she got to the bottom it was midnight on the first day of the race, she had been running — sometimes walking — all day and all night.

When she passed the tiny desert town of Keller on the doorstep of the dry Owen’s Valley lakebed, she faced a flat overnight run through the valley.

TUESDAY

At 6 a.m. Tuesday, as she approached race Time Station No. 6 at an intersection of two cracked asphalt roads, at a place called Darwin, she watched the sun rise over the Inyo mountain range.

She checked in at the station with a time of 24 hours and two minutes, with 146 kilometres completed.

Darwin marked the eastern most edge of the route. Runners reaching it turned around and headed back to the finish line and back to Mount Whitney.

“I had bad stomach pains,” Alexander said at Darwin, reflecting on her overnight run to the ghost town.

“When I started that climb, that’s when my stomach really started to hurt,” she said.

Temperatures throughout the day hovered just under 38 C, just as they had Monday.

But, Alexander ran through Keller and ran through the heat, challenging her crewmembers to keep up.

“She’s so fast when she walks,” Louie said, panting as he struggled to keep up.

“She’s going to set the bar for all other women wanting to break her time,” said her running crew member Barry Hopkins of Calgary as he struggled to keep pace with her as well at kilometre 188.

At 1 p.m. Tuesday, with just 40 kilometres to go — a full marathon for not-so-tough runners — Alexander was asked what her biggest challenge was on Day 2 of the marathon.

Blisters, she said.

“I changed shoes. And then when I pushed my foot in, I just tore the blister right open,” she said while running and landing on the blister with each step.

“So now my heel is ugly,” she said. “I had it taped once with a Band-aid and then it ruptured again.”

Crewmember Maria Boyd, a nurse, got out the first aid kit and mended the blister.

By mid-afternoon, Alexander was making her final climb up Mount Whitney to the finish line, the last 21 kilometres uphill.

ROUTE CHANGE

For the first time in the 37-year history of the Badwater Ultra-marathon, the course was changed.

In the past, the race began at Badwater, hence the name, which is the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere at 86 metres below sea level.

New park rules this year, forced race planners to alter their route.

Asked which Badwater race route was tougher, the traditional route from Badwater or this year’s alternative course, she said: “This one is harder.

“Because there were three big separate climbs and they were road and trail and that made a difference for me.

“And, you’re not crewed on the trail and you don’t have a pacer or anything on the first climb. So it’s a little different, not having your crew with you.”

Alexander, with her crew in tow, broke the tape at the finish line on Mount Whitney just as the sun was setting on the second day, at 36 hours, 32 minutes and 37 seconds, shaving at least 20 minutes off her previous time set in 2011.

More importantly, she clinched the title she set out to achieve: only woman to complete the first Badwater Ultra Cup.

“I feel awesome,” she said at the finish line, reaching out for a group hug with her four-crew members.

“It’s very nice to take that record home,” she said, home being Calgary.